Dilemma
by servantofclio
Summary: His fear has come true: Oroku Saki has found him. Splinter considers his options. (TMNT 2012, set mid-season 1, after "The Gauntlet")


Oroku Saki has found him.

Oh, Yoshi had hoped otherwise, back when Michelangelo had made his unfortunate acquaintance. He had hoped that the incursion was a mere coincidence, Saki and his people seeking to expand their shadow empire to one of the world's great cities, no more.

A fool's hope, he knows now. (In truth, he knew it then, but he let himself hope, piling folly on top of folly.) The Shredder is here himself, here to mete out his vengeance, as he promised. Yoshi knows him of old. He does not give up easily.

Yoshi closes his eyes, wills the tremble in his hands to depart, focuses on the breath. In and out. Nothing but the breath.

_The roar of fire; the beams of the house groan as the warp and burn. Tang Shen's voice has fallen silent. The baby is silent, or drowned out by the inferno. He cries out, reaching toward the dark form that departs—_

_Breathe_. No fire; nothing but the breath. Here the air is cool. He tries to let the memory wash through him and over him, but it lodges, bitter as the taste of ash in his throat. He could have exacted his own revenge, then, but instead he had taken himself and his grieving heart halfway around the world, buried himself in obscurity. One night in an alley, and he had buried himself deeper still, himself and the four little ones who depended on him.

Somewhere inside him, there is a deep-rooted instinct to flee, to scramble away while he still can. He is not sure whether it is the rat, or the man. Yet there is some wisdom in that instinct. The Shredder is here; let Splinter be elsewhere.

But it is more difficult now. The last time he fled, he had already lost everything. Now he has another family—and his sons are long past the days when he could put them in a sling and carry the lot of them, doing his best to muffle their tiny voices against his fur. What was once merely simple shelter is now comfortable, a home, and the only one they have ever known. His boys are good sons, and loyal—but Yoshi knows they have disobeyed him before, and will again. They are old enough to have questions, bold enough to form their own plans. They had already thrown themselves headlong into war against these alien creatures before Saki's vengeance opened a chasm beneath their feet. Without them, what would happen to the city? What would become of April O'Neil? They have offered the girl their protection; to leave now would be to abandon her and her father, lost somewhere in the custody of the aliens.

The boys will not go, Yoshi knows in his heart. Not without much arguing and confusion, not without forcing them to break their word to April. It would break their hearts, tear them from their home and the first friend they have ever had.

Not that, then. What instead?

He breathes out and in, tasting the familiar scents of home on the cool air.

He could surrender.

Saki may not know him in this guise, but Yoshi can prove his identity well enough. With some effort, he could locate his adversary and present himself. The Shredder had already taken from him his wife, his child, his home, his clan. Let the Shredder take his life, as well. Let him slake his thirst for blood—

But would Yoshi's death slake that thirst?

Breathe out, breathe in. Splinter thinks back over the chains of blood and fury that bind them, that have always bound them, that entangled both him and Saki in their coils long before they were old enough to understand. They were born into a vendetta, unbeknownst to them both.

Just as he raised his own sons into it, the boys all innocent, unknowing. To them, Tang Shen and Oroku Saki were only part of a story their father told, nothing that would ever affect their own quiet existence.

Saki had taken vendetta to heart. He would not have pursued Yoshi around the world, else. And he knows: he may not know that Yoshi counts the boys his sons, children of his heart and spirit, if not his flesh. But he knows that Yoshi had taken students. He knows their faces, and their names. He might not be content with Yoshi's life.

Breathe out, breathe in. His ears twitch and his tail trembles. There is the other side, too. Splinter's boys are good sons, and loyal, and brave. They would not understand, would not accept his sacrifice. Their love and grief and rage and courage would drive them on, right to the Shredder's blades. They escaped before through wit and stealth, and seizing opportunity; they are strong and skilled, but still young, still inexperienced. Their training is not complete. They need him, yet, no matter how quickly they have grown, no matter how eagerly they step into the world above.

Besides, he cannot bear the thought of leaving them orphaned.

Surrender will not answer, then, any more that flight would. They must stay, and see the battle through. They must prepare.

The boys may not yet understand that they are in for the fight of their lives.


End file.
